Oath of Fealty

Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter follows her dream of becoming a hero out of legend by running away to join the army. Military life and warfare aren't anything like she imagined - yet she holds to both her duty and her dreams. Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold tell of her rise to become the paladin who saves a kingdom. In this new trilogy, Paks's former comrades in Duke Phelan's Company assume new roles and the story turns to follow their adventures.

At the Sign of Triumph: Safehold, Book 9

The Church of God Awaiting's triumph over Charis was inevitable. Despite its prosperity, the Charis was a single, small island realm. It boasted less than two percent of the total population of Safehold. How could it possibly resist total destruction? The Church had every reason to be confident of a swift, crushing victory, an object lesson to other rebels.

Shadow of Victory

Sometimes things don't work out exactly as planned. The Mesan Alignment has a plan - one it's been working on for centuries. A plan to remake the galaxy and genetically improve the human race - its way. Until recently things have gone pretty much as scheduled, but then the Alignment hit a minor bump in the road called the Star Empire of Manticore. So the Alignment engineered a war between the Solarian League, the biggest and most formidable interstellar power in human history.

Oath of Swords: War God, Book 1

Bahzell is no knight in shining armor, and besides he has too many problems of his own to be messing with anybody else's problems - let alone the War God's. Unfortunately, the War God has other ideas for him.

War Maid’s Choice: War God, Book 4

In Wind Rider’s Oath, Bahzell became a wind rider - the first hradani wind rider in history. And, even if Bahzell is the War God’s champion, because the wind riders are the elite of the elite among the Sothoii, Bahzell’s ascension is as likely to stir resentment as respect. What’s more, Baron Tellian’s daughter, the heir to the realm, seems to be thinking that he is the only man - or hradani - for her. Now, War Maid’s Choice continues the story - and things really get complicated.

Closer to the Chest: The Herald Spy, Book Three

Herald Mags, the King of Valdemar's Herald-Spy, has been developing a clandestine network of young informants who operate not only on the streets of the capital city of Haven but also in the Great Halls and kitchens of the wealthy and highborn. In his own established alternate personas, Mags observes the Court and the alleys alike, quietly gathering information to keep Haven and the Kingdom safe.

Koban: Conflict and Empire

The Galactic Federation is confronted by the vast and implacable Thandol Empire, which has coveted the former Krall region of space for eons, a region of space now occupied and claimed by the upstart Kobani. Outnumbered, they face an opponent who possesses new and deadly weapons. An enemy that had thousands of years to develop the means to take on the Krall Empire, and now present the supermen with a weapon that turns their greatest genetic asset into their greatest weakness.

Sassinak: The Planet Pirates, Book 1

Sassinak was 12 when the raiders came. That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.

Remnant Population

For forty years, Colony 3245.12 has been Ofelia’s home. On this planet far away in space and time from the world of her youth, she has lived and loved, weathered the death of her husband, raised her one surviving child, lovingly tended her garden, and grown placidly old. And it is here that she fully expects to finish out her days - until the shifting corporate fortunes of the Sims Bancorp Company dictates that Colony 3245.12 is to be disbanded, its residents shipped off, deep in cryo-sleep, to somewhere new and strange and not of their choosing.

Schooled in Magic

Emily is a teenage girl pulled from our world into a world of magic and mystery by a necromancer who intends to sacrifice her to the dark gods. Rescued in the nick of time by an enigmatic sorcerer, she discovers that she possesses magical powers and must go to Whitehall School to learn how to master them. There, she learns that the locals believe she is a "Child of Destiny" - someone whose choices might save or damn their world, a title that earns her both friends and enemies.

The Sword of the South

Know thyself. Its always good to know who you are, but sometimes that's a little difficult. Kenhodan has no last name because he has no past...or not one he remembers, anyway. What he does have are a lot of scars and a lot of skills - some exhilarating and some terrifying - and a purpose. Now, if he only knew where he'd gotten them and what their purpose was....

The Terran Privateer: The Duchy of Terra, Book 1

Earth is conquered. Sol is lost. One ship is tasked to free them. One Captain to save them all. When an alien armada destroys the United Earth Space Force and takes control of the human homeworld, newly reinstated Captain Annette Bond must take her experimental hyperspace cruiser Tornado into exile as Terra's only interstellar privateer. She has inferior technology, crude maps, and no concept of her enemy, but the seedy underbelly of galactic society welcomes her so long as she has prizes to sell and money to spend.

In Ashes Born: A Seeker's Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, Book 1

An old friend. A new course. A deadly ship with a secret cargo. Ishmael Wang returns to Port Newmar, but ghosts from his past have followed him. His old shipmate, Phillip Carstairs, offers him the opportunity to track down the man who killed his lover. The catch? He must take command of the Chernyakova, a ship that still stinks of death and haunts Ishmael's nightmares. Together Phillip and Ismael begin a journey into unknown reaches of the Deep Dark to bring back the man who killed Greta.

The Magic of Recluce: Saga of Recluce, Book 1

Young Lerris is dissatisfied with his life and trade, and yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. But in Recluce a change in circumstances means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or braving the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond Recluce, with the aim of learning how the world works and what his place in it might be. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses the dangergeld.

Into the Dark: Alexis Carew, Book 1

At 15, Alexis Carew has to face an age old problem - she's a girl, and only a boy can inherit the family's vast holdings. Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded spaceship with no other females.

On Basilisk Station: Honor Harrington, Book 1

Honor Harrington has been exiled to Basilisk station and given an antique ship to police the system. The vindictive superior who sent her there wants her to fail. But he made one mistake: he's made her mad....

An Empire Asunder: The Scourwind Legacy, Book 2

The coup that won traitor General Corian the Scourwind throne has been overturned, but his ongoing rebellion has left the empire divided. Lydia's birthright regained, she adjusts to her role as empress at war, while Brennan begins training as an elite Cadreman soldier. With tensions rising between the empire and the Alliance, this momentary lull seems to portend a gathering storm...

Lessons in Etiquette: Schooled in Magic, Book 2

After completing her first year of learning magic at Whitehall School, Emily accepts an invitation from Princess Alassa to accompany her on her progress back to her home country of Zangaria, where the princess may meet her future husband. Alassa, who was a spoiled brat before she met Emily, wants to show off her friend - and impress potential suitors. For Emily, it is a chance to relax and explore a world very different to Earth, meet new people and come to terms with her reputation in the Nameless World.

Ink Mage: A Fire Beneath the Skin, Book 1

In the first installment of the A Fire Beneath the Skin trilogy, the city of Klaar has never fallen. No enemy has ever made it across the Long Bridge or penetrated the city's mighty walls. Even when a powerful invading army shows up at the gates, the duke and his daughter, Rina Veraiin, are certain that it poses little threat. But they are cruelly betrayed from within and, in a horrific spasm of violence, the city is brought to its knees.

Dark Minds: Class 5 Series, Book 3

Imogen Peters knows she's a pawn. She's been abducted from Earth, held prisoner, and abducted again. So when she gets a chance at freedom, she takes it with both hands, not realizing that doing so will turn her from pawn to kingmaker. Captain Camlar Kalor expected to meet an Earth woman on his current mission, he just thought he'd be meeting her on Larga Ways, under the protection of his Battle Center colleague. Instead, he and Imogen are thrown together as prisoners in the hold of a Class 5 battleship.

Study in Slaughter: Schooled in Magic, Book 3

Brimming with new ideas for magical research, Emily returns to Whitehall School for her second year of magical education, looking forward to returning to her studies. And yet things are different; her new roommates harbor their secrets, her old friends are becoming distracted by sports and games, and one of the teachers seems to dislike her. As she starts new classes, she discovers she has to work far harder to keep her place in the school. But her second year will be far more adventurous than her first.

Crusade: Starfire, Book 1

Spacers call the warp point Charon's Ferry. No star ship has ever entered it and returned since a vengeful Orion task force pursued a doomed Terran colonization fleet into it in 2206. Almost a century has passed. The fiery hatreds of a quarter-century of warfare between the Terran Federation and the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieeee, the cat-like species humans called the "Orions", have eased at least a little.

Publisher's Summary

Paksenarrion, a simple sheepfarmer's daughter, yearns for a life of adventure and glory, such as was known to heroes in songs and story. At age seventeen she runs away from home to join a mercenary company and begins her epic life.

Book Three: Paks the warrior must learn to live with Paks the human. She undertakes a holy quest for a lost elven prince that brings the gods' wrath down on her and tests her very limits.

Book One was fabulous! Book Two slacked off a little, but was necessary in context to the trials Paksenarrion had to go through to blossom into the Paladin she was meant to be in Book Three. The last installment was the best of the three. I was so glad I took the leap on this Audible series. I loved it so much I bought a NEW COPY of the book to add to my permanent library. This trilogy has become my all time favorite!! Jennifer Van Dyck was a pleasure to listen to the whole way through. She definitely was able to differentiate between different charactors and had a pace and timbre that made it easy to follow along and enjoy. GET ALL THREE BOOKS! This series is a keeper .....

Add Paksenarrion (an elfin name) to the pantheon of my heroes. In my review of Sheep Farmer's Daughter, Book 1 of The trilogy Deed Of Paksenarrion, I marveled at Moon's treatment of military issues and her integration of men and women in positions of leadership and of lesser rank. As I read the trilogy, Paks grew on me. I still feel that more character development a la George R. R. Martin and Terry Goodkind, would have fmade the trilogy a richer experience. This said, the trilogy is all about Paks, a remarkably human hero. I was in continual suspense about her fate until near the very end. But Moon does not kill off characters as Martin does. Instead, Moon wraps a gripping and at times spell binding tale around the development of her lead character, Paksenarrion Dorfan's Daughter. A well done first trilogy, in my opinion I am richer for having read it.

By the end of Divided Allegiance, Paksenarrion had become afraid of just about everything. The healing that the Gird Marshals evoked upon Paks rid her of the taint, but took away her courage. In this book, Paks gains further healing from Master Oakhallow and is finally able to continue her calling. Now she understands what it is like to be literally scared stiff. Her trials give her new compassion and strength.

She receives a red Paladin horse from the gods and he seems to sometimes direct her quests. Paks discovers the true heir King to Lyonya, makes an ultimate sacrifice that she amazingly survives and makes sure the Lyonyan king is able to be accepted to rule.

I have enjoyed the three audio books that are "The Deed of Paksenarrion." Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold.

Jennifer Van Dyck has brought life to the books that have been our family favorites since they were released in 1988 and '89.

Fans of fantasy genre should thoroughly enjoy the Paksenarrion books. If you are looking for good to triumph over evil, this is the place that has it.

I can not count how many times I have re-read this series. I started reading it when it was first published. since then I had worn out 2ea of the individual books and 3 of the trade. I travel a lot now so I went with the audiobook of all three, unfortunately I had them all finished before half the week was through. I always felt there were some inconsistencies within the world she had created but it has always been a great story. I always know what was to be on the next page or chapter but get caught up in it and can't skip a word. Can't wait to turn the page.

What made the experience of listening to Oath of Gold the most enjoyable?

Character and story development

What was one of the most memorable moments of Oath of Gold?

Pak's self discovery.

Which scene was your favorite?

Pak's transcendence during torture

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Pak's ability to forgive and reconcile as she led the Gird's militia.

Any additional comments?

This is the third book of a classic series. Elizabeth Moon has done the best job in my extensive reading and listening experience of expanding the Tolkienian universe and has lent it depth beyond even the writings of Tolkien! The deep wisdom and experience she imparts in this book come as a result of her experiences as a Marine officer and her history with horses and blades. She has brought that hard-edged experience into the soft, academic world of Tolkien and the nitty-gritty reality evoked makes the story come alive.

Not sure why she felt the need to go into such detail on the torture or why she spent so long on it. After about 20 minutes, with no end in sight, I ended up fast-forwarding through about 15 more minutes of a torturous depiction of torture. As far as the narrator, I think she did well, but I didn't like her interpretation of the elven voices in any of the books.